An excerpt from the letter written by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver, endorsing the return of assistant coach Joe Cullen to the league after completing NFL-sponsored rehabilitation because of two alcohol-related incidents during his employment with the Detroit Lions:

“Joe paid a heavy price, and rightly so. But to his credit, throughout this process he has always accepted responsibility and has willingly embraced the result as an opportunity to become a better person and role model. Not only has he fully complied with the obligations that were imposed on him, but he has undertaken several others on his own.

“Having had the benefit of several conversations with him as well as reports from a number of sources, I think he is an example of our primary objective under the policy — to provide assistance and support that ultimately rebuilds reputations and extend careers. I have little doubt that he will continue to progress and will make every effort to represent the Jaguars in a positive manner.”

Cullen’s coaching career

A college nose guard at UMass, Joe Cullen is known for his skills at teaching pass-rushing technique.

The man entrusted with repairing the Jaguars’ anemic pass rush has been the object of much derision, both in water-cooler conversation and cyberspace. Joe Cullen understands a lot of the skepticism about Jacksonville hiring him last month as its defensive line coach.

Given the franchise’s heavy public emphasis on character and bringing quality people into the organization, many questioned why the Jaguars would give Cullen another NFL lifeline. Two embarrassing alcohol-related incidents nearly sabotaged his career with the Detroit Lions in 2006 before it really began.

Cullen respects his doubters, saying unabashedly that he brought the ridicule on himself. He’s not expecting a free pass on his past or immediate trust from strangers. All the admitted alcoholic and 42-year-old Boston-area native asks is a chance to show people in his new NFL city that he’s conquering his demons, that he’s ready to get on with the business of helping the Jaguars improve on last year’s league-low 14 quarterback sacks.

He desperately wants to convince the Jaguars and their fans that he’s worthy of this opportunity, even though critics out there still hold Cullen’s indiscretions against him.

“First, if there’s anyone out there that’s perfect, I’d like to meet them,” Cullen said in an hour-long interview with the Times-Union. “Number two, with me and my isolated incidents, I’ve never been in trouble in my life other than when alcohol was involved. So I made a promise to myself that alcohol and I weren’t going to be teammates any more.

“I know my judgment — what I’m going to do and what I want to do — is clear. I think if you show true remorse, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to better yourself, not just as a football coach but as a person, then, to me, people deserve second chances. You’re always going to have people that are going to doubt you, always going to have people say, 'Ahhh, you shouldn’t have hired that guy.’ That’s what I’d say to that.”

Being hired by the Jaguars represents a professional rebirth for Cullen, who says he’s up to three-and-a-half years and counting on his path to sobriety. When coach Rod Marinelli’s staff in Detroit was fired after the 2008 season, Cullen found himself in limbo, unable to get another NFL job because the stigma of his alcohol offenses during the 2006 preseason were too damaging for prospective employers.

On Aug. 24 that year, the night before a preseason game, Cullen gained league-wide infamy for pulling up at a Wendy’s drive-through in Dearborn, Mich., while naked behind the wheel of an SUV. A restaurant employee witnessed the incident around 11:15 p.m. and reported it to police, who charged Cullen with indecent and obscene conduct.

Eight days later, he was stopped by police shortly before midnight for driving his Ford Explorer without its headlights on. Cullen was charged with drunk driving for having a blood-alcohol content of .12, over Michigan’s legal limit of .08. After the second incident, the Lions suspended him for the season-opening game against Seattle.

Later that season, the NFL imposed its own punishment for those two incidents, fining Cullen $20,000 and suspending him for a Week 16 game against the Bears for conduct detrimental to the league.

In February, 2007, Cullen reached a plea agreement on all the misdemeanor charges against him. He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week.

Cullen, who worked last year as the defensive coordinator at Idaho State for longtime friend John Zamberlin, went through the NFL-sponsored alcohol rehabilitation outpatient program from September 2006 until the following July. Cullen attended the Maple Grove program run by director Tom Ghena, who worked with him in group meetings and one-on-one sessions.

Ghena declined to talk to the Times-Union about Cullen, citing a policy not to discuss any patient’s rehabilitation. However, people with intimate knowledge of Cullen’s road toward sobriety have vouched for his commitment to help not only the Jaguars on the field, but others who suffer from alcoholism. He has spoken to NFL players and coaches about the disease’s impact on his life.

“He went from an NFL assistant to having his salary cut 80 percent [at Idaho State],” Marinelli said. “He was just trying to survive, then couldn’t get a sniff for another college job after last season, but he stayed upbeat. I knew if he had a chance to interview with somebody, he’d knock it out.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wrote letters to NFL teams and colleges on Cullen’s behalf, saying, in effect, he did everything the league required to restore his damaged reputation. Goodell based his assessment on several conversations with Cullen, as well as reports from several sources.

In terms of moral support, few coaches stood behind Cullen more than Marinelli, who allowed him to keep working for his entire three-year Lions tenure after his arrests. Marinelli, now the Chicago Bears’ defensive coordinator/assistant head coach, took a lot of media criticism for not immediately firing Cullen. He’s impressed at how Cullen, the object of so much public ridicule for the Wendy’s incident, battled his alcohol problem and stayed composed through turbulent times.

“I got criticized for [not firing Cullen] in the media, which generates the fans,” Marinelli said. “The incident [at Wendy’s], how it looked, was bad. No doubt about it. When the incidents happened, I asked myself, 'Is it disease-based or a bad guy making bad decisions?’ The bottom line is he’s an alcoholic. That’s when you know it’s a disease. No way you do that if you love football.

“I had to toe the line with him. He went through every program, everything the commissioner asked him to do. The thing that sticks out in my mind was the enormous amount of criticism [Cullen] took and he stood the course. All he did was prepare each week and not listen to the critics. Do you know how hard that is when people are pounding you in the dirt? Now he has a chance to go forward with the Jaguars.

“The last two years, he’s had a ton of doors slammed in his face. Joe Cullen is a great story.”

Restoring a damaged image

It never occurred to Cullen until he was arrested twice in a one-week span that he had a problem with alcohol. From the time he was an adult, he says he often went long periods without drinking, but it took the embarrassment of making the wrong kind of headlines to realize he was going down a bad road.

“I could go six months without a drink, but I couldn’t guarantee I’d stop at two or three when I did drink,” he said.

Cullen, a nose guard and 1989 team MVP at the University of Massachusetts, spent his first 15 coaching seasons at five different college stops without any blotch on his resume. Then in the spring of 2005, after being hired as line coach at Ole Miss, Cullen was cited for public drunkenness at a sandwich shop after falling asleep while waiting for an order.

Though the charge was ultimately dropped, Ole Miss fired Cullen. He filed a lawsuit to retrieve his salary, and the two parties reached an out-of-court settlement. Cullen subsequently took at job at Illinois as a defensive graduate assistant under Ron Zook, who said the incident in Oxford gave him no reason to hesitate in hiring Cullen. He was ready to promote him to defensive coordinator when Marinelli called Cullen with an offer to join the Lions.

“Joe has never been anything but class, just a top-notch coach with us,” Zook said. “Now, he made a mistake [with the Lions] and paid for it. The Jaguars couldn’t have found a better football coach or person.”

But there’s no denying that the Wendy’s episode sticks to Cullen, as evidenced by former Lions quarterback Jon Kitna and his wife spoofing the incident a year later at a teammate’s Halloween party. No explanation for showing up naked at a drive-through is likely sufficient, but Cullen didn’t blink when asked about it.

“Well, it’s simple; it’s called a blackout, so I don’t know,” Cullen said. “When you have a blackout, bang. You realize through being educated [about alcohol consumption] that you drink too much. I’m sure there’s a lot of incidents out there where people don’t remember a thing they did the night when they were drinking. That’s basically what happened.”

Cullen’s road to redemption began as the controversy diminished over his three seasons with Detroit, helped immensely by Marinelli. He got to know Cullen when he coached the defensive line with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1990s, while Cullen held a similar post at the University of Richmond. With the Lions, Marinelli took Cullen under his wing, steadfastly standing behind him during his turmoil.

When the Jaguars went searching for a defensive line coach to replaced the fired Ted Monachino, they had reason to consider giving Cullen a shot. In addition to Goodell vouching for his comeback and Marinelli being a vocal supporter, Idaho State’s Zamberlin, who coached Cullen at UMass and worked with him at Richmond, gave him a ringing endorsement to Del Rio. Cullen was in Zamberlin’s wedding party and the pair were once roommates.

“I know coach Del Rio wanted to get back to that kind of [aggressive pass-rushing] scheme on defense, so I knew Joe would get an interview,” Zamberlin said. “Joe [Cullen] is thankful to Del Rio and the Jaguars for believing in him. You’re not going to find a more loyal, hard-working guy. He’s learned from his mistakes. I wouldn’t have someone in my home and around my family if I didn’t feel that way.’’

Within the Jaguars building, Cullen also had a couple of key references. Terry McDonough, the team’s director of player personnel, was a classmate and good friend of Cullen’s from their days in the UMass sports management program. They had known each other since competing at rival high schools.

Jaguars linebackers coach Mark Duffner was the head coach at Holy Cross (1987-91) when Cullen played against his team.

“I never saw [Cullen] drunk in college,” McDonough said. “He was the designated driver, the good guy. He was consumed with football and school. I didn’t know him as a drinker. He called me after the Wendy’s thing happened and said, 'Terry, I can’t drink alcohol. I forget what happens when I drink. I have to get help.’ ”

By all accounts, Cullen, who credits his “strong Catholic faith” for helping him through the darkest period of his life, has remained clean since that DUI offense. After Del Rio made the call on the hire, Weaver signed off on it.

“We thoroughly evaluated Joe Cullen and we are fully aware of the past,” Weaver said. “We have done due diligence in considering him and I received the support of commissioner Goodell in making this hire. Joe Cullen is an experienced coach with an extensive and impressive background in coaching, and we’re pleased to have Joe join our coaching staff.”

Fixing the pass rush

For the Jaguars, it’s not so much about where Cullen’s career has been, but how he can help them improve on their biggest weakness. Del Rio talks endlessly about trying to “affect the quarterback,” but Jacksonville couldn’t do either out of a 3-4 or 4-3 scheme last season.

Since being hired last month, Cullen has reviewed every game tape from 2009, trying to familiarize himself with personnel and what he can do to improve the pass rush. During his three years in Detroit, the Lions’ defensive line twice finished in the league’s top 10 in total sacks after finishing 24th in his first year.

“Looking at the tape, there’s some guys here like Derrick Harvey and John Henderson that can get to the quarterback,” Cullen said. “There were a lot of close-but-no-cigar [quarterback sacks]. I can’t answer why the pass rush wasn’t better, because I wasn’t here. I know my job is to fix that. I’ll come in and work to do the things we need to do to get to the quarterback.”

Despite the Lions’ abysmal 10-38 record from 2006-08 and Cullen’s rough start off the field, his work with the defensive line was considered somewhat of a bright spot. Detroit had 97 quarterback sacks in three years, just below the combined NFL average of 103 over that time span.

Lions defensive end Cliff Avril, a Clay High graduate, played one season with Cullen and had five sacks as an undersized rookie in 2008. Avril says he learned a lot and liked Cullen’s approach to his job.

“He actually has a concept to the pass rush,” Avril said. “He’s intense, an in-your-face kind of a guy, but I enjoyed my time with him. He helped me get to the quarterback quite a few times. The drills that we did in practice were very helpful. They made you think about small things [in pass-rush] that you might not think about.

“I felt like he knew a lot about rushing the passer. He knew what particular guys needed to work on to get to the quarterback.”

But can Cullen amp up a Jaguars pass-rush that features two starting defensive ends, Derrick Harvey and Quentin Groves, who have eight combined sacks in two years? Reggie Hayward, the team’s most effective pass-rusher in 2008 (4.5 sacks), missed nearly all of last season with a broken leg.

Cullen is especially fond of Harvey, a player he says the Lions targeted with their first-round pick (No. 17) two years ago before the Jaguars traded up to take him. He believes Harvey, despite having just two sacks last season, can still be a force in the league.

“Our pick was going to be Derrick Harvey if he was available,” Cullen said. “We did a lot of research on him, put him through a great one-on-one workout after Florida’s pro day. The qualities we saw in Derrick are still there. He’s explosive, strong. He’s going to be a powerful rusher. With more repetition and work, that can come out of him.”

Whether Cullen can draw that out of Harvey and the rest of the defensive line, only time will bear out. What is certain is that the alcohol issue that almost derailed his coaching career has been addressed. Cullen can move on from a disgraced past and make the best of his NFL second chance.

When you have Brett Favre as your QB, [pretty much anyone can be a rookie of the year. He just thrived with one of the greatest QBs of all time. Let's see how he does with Tavaris Jackson at QB. He'll probably just disappear.

With that said,do you actually watch the Jaguars? If you actually did, you would've seen the emergence of Mike Sims-Walker, Mike Thomas, and, for a short time, Jarrett Dillard.

Mike Sims-Walker had 800+ yards receiving and 7 TDs.

Mike Thomas has developed into a competent slot receiver and an explosive kick returner

Jarrett Dillard, while rarely seen, made big plays when it counted, averaging 17.6 yards per catch

And the latter two were only rookies. Plus, it would be kind of stupid to draft a Gator in the first round for the THIRD year in a row. Especially when the last two hadn't panned out. This is the Jacksonville Jaguars, not the Jacksonville Gators.

Don't lump this idiot with being a Nole...we wouldn't have him either. Probably a Canes fan

As for the hire..I believe in second chances espically involoving alcohol. He seems sincere in over coming the problem. I just hope he was the best hire available. I mean his former jobs aren't that impressive. It was the Lions..doe sit get much lower than that?

I was just wondering how many of you folks on this board thinks that I, BMF, is a waste of air and my mom should be penalized for conceiving me? Be honest now. I know that I am a moronic idiot but want to know how much of an annoying loser I am. Anyone care to join me in 'LA BMF BLACKOUT"? It's wonderful once you get the hang of it. My head now has this smelly ring around the outside and I keep wondering why I'm getting dumber by the minute.

LA BMF BLACKOUT - Where I shove my head up my butt to see the crap that makes up my brain. Anyone that associates with me, BMF, is a loser like myself and needs to be kicked like a mule. You all make it too easy for me to make a Jack***** out of myself.

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you're working with a bunch of turkeys

44 points

dafish

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 @ 10:13 pm

So what that Percy had a great year with the Vikes. His predraft act with the drug test allegations that he nor his agent never denied killed his draft stock. No one denied that Percy is a heck of a player. Many said he was the best pound for pound athlete in the draft.

Those migraines are gonna get very old when the Vikes start to struggle after mortgaging the next 5 years for this one and possibly next year if Favre comes back. The Jags could not take him and about 21 other teams felt he was more trouble than he was worth. Who's to say we would have signed him anyway? Crabtree, the guy everyone wanted, did not sign til about week 7. Knowing Weaver's history of not coming off the wallet, I doubt Crabtree would have put on a Jags jersey last year. Guess what, Mike Thomas had 12 fewer catches at a fraction of the price it cost to get Harvin.

48 catches from a 4th rounder or 60 from a first rounder. You be the judge. No one expected production out of the rookie receivers on the Jaguars. Anything was a bonus.

In fact, I'd dare say the one person who missed Percy Harvin the most was Tim Terrible, I mean Tebow. He sure looked very human without any gamebreaking receivers this year.

I think we need to look past Gainesville for our draft in a couple months, unless Joe Haden is sittng on the board.